Men will no longer be forced to take on the outdated forced role of provider in the event of a divorce?

Will men be able to shluff of the 17th century mindset that says if a man leaves his wife or if a wife leaves her husband, the husband is still legally obligated to provide payment for a home and childcare for the woman?

When men are allowed the same expectations of responsibility in divorce and child support as women then we can talk about equality.

In the mean time this effort if it is successful is the kind of pointless victory in equality that I would expect from our current ACLU.

It's just good to know that those Bush wiretaps are taken care of, since obviously the ACLU has nothing better to do.

Throughout history, one of the reasons that parents expressed a preference for sons over daughters was so that the son could "carry on the family name (and fortune)." Thus the constant "trying" by some couples to produce a boy, even if it took several "failures" a/k/a daughters, before doing so. (This happened in Princess Di's birth family according to her biographers.)

Little-known bit of historical trivia: President Lyndon Johnson tried to make a deal with both of his sons-in-law to take on the Johnson surname for dynastic reasons; they refused. Presumably other prominent fathers-of-daughters-only have tried to do this as well.

So...if we finally reach a point where either the bride's or groom's surname can become the official surname of the new family unit, will the pressure to keep producing "bearers of the family name" ease up? And in the opinion of Broadsheeters, will the birth rate eventually decline as this "stigma" of daughter-only families disappears?

I was married in Hawaii, and I remember being pleased with the way the marriage license is designed so as to make it easy for either partner to choose to keep or change his or her name.

It has a section at the top for each parter's current legal name, and a section at the bottom for each one's name after marriage, which might be the same or different.

Personally, I think that name changes on marriage should not be automatic, they should require payment of a fee just like any other name change. There is no sensible reason in our modern society with computer databases why spouses would need to share a surname.

Men have already shuffled off those 17th century notions. When my cousin got divorced from her mentally-ill husband, even though she had custody of their child she still had to pay maintenence to her husband: due to his illness he was basically unemployable for many years and she had been working to support them both. (She left him because he was becoming so irrational she feared for their child.)

In situations where the woman is the primary support of the family, the woman often is required to support her ex-huband until he gets his act together. This is the same thing that happens with men who are the primary support of the family, they must support their ex-wives until they get their act together. Permenant, lifelong support is rare these days except in cases where the marriage lasted a long time and it can be shown that the wife's contribution to the family was unpaid work at home. Or situations where one spouse worked to put the other through professional school.

Just because one spouse doesn't get a paycheck for what he or she does for the family doesn't mean that it doesn't have value. Have you priced housekeepers, babysitters, in-home chefs and personal assistants lately?

Basically, Western society leaves a woman little choice: she either keeps her father's name or takes her husband's name. (Yeah, yeah, I know you can hyphenate, too.)

Still, I don't see this as needing to be framed from a feminist perspective. Instead, we need to ask ourselves a great big WTF? when it comes to last names across the board.

Really and truly, the reasons for last names "as is currently practiced" are pretty much outmoded, based entirely on record-keeping, religious, and cultural norms. I say we junk the whole system. You get the name you get at birth. When you become a legal adult, you may file paperwork for free to change it. After that--for any reason--you pay a nominal fee to change it.

Seriously, I don't care what your first or last name is. Just tell me how to pronounce it.

This is going to make their lives a lot more complicated.

ABC news reports a handful of states where the husband may easily choose the wife's surname at the time of marriage.....but omits the great State of Oregon. Here in Oregon, it has been a long tradition that either spouse may take the other's last name at the time of marriage.....

Men will no longer be forced to take on the outdated forced role of provider in the event of a divorce?

Will men be able to shluff of the 17th century mindset that says if a man leaves his wife or if a wife leaves her husband, the husband is still legally obligated to provide payment for a home and childcare for the woman?

When men are allowed the same expectations of responsibility in divorce and child support as women then we can talk about equality.

FYI, women who are adamant about keeping their last names tend to be the ones already supporting equality in these cases (my few friends who have taken on a married name out of convenience also feel this way). Think about it: if a woman had any kind of golddigging tendencies, wouldn't she most likely take his name to cement her affiliation with his estate? It's kind of perplexing how some people point to women acting in decidedly non-feminist ways and pinning the blame on feminists (I apologize if this is not what you were implying).

The idea of taking a man's last name struck me as highly illogical when I was 9 years old, and my opinion still remains the same 26 years later! It begs the question: how is MY family line any less important? Plus, what if I fell in love with a man bearing a name like "Buttfield?" Perhaps my last name would be more appealing, and why should it be more difficult for him to take mine?

Besides, it's all girls on this side of the family...one of us has to ensure the name doesn't become extinct!